The Strength of Franchising

Franchising is the most popular system for growing a business in the United States today. According to every government survey, franchising has experienced explosive growth since the mid-70s and is expected to be the leading method of doing business in the new century.

In the United States, there are over 2,500 franchise systems. These systems have in excess of 534,000 franchise units, which represent 3.2% of the total businesses. This 3.2% of all businesses controls over 35% of all retail and service revenue in the U.S. economy.

Franchising's advantages over going into business for yourself include; opening quicker, experiencing success sooner, developing a customer base faster, having less risk and being more profitable.

Your success as a franchisee is based on the proven success of the franchisor to operate company units and upon the success of existing franchisees.

A company franchises because it wants to quickly and in great numbers replicate its successful company operations without significantly increasing its debt. Because it has been successful at teaching its own employees to operate the business, the company believes it can repeat the same success by teaching others to do it.

In franchising, the operating system becomes identified with the brand or trade name that you license as a franchisee. Each franchise system uses precise methods to service and satisfy the customer. By documenting these practices, the franchisor institutionalizes the buying experience. Because customers don't like surprises this consistency in operations, unit to unit, builds customer loyalty to the brand.

Franchising is successful because we Americans are people of habit and are brand-driven when we purchase goods and services. We trust brands that we see everywhere, every day. We tend to be loyal to a product or service delivered to us the same way all the time.